The S&P 500 and many other indexes are extremely expensive. The cyclically adjusted price earnings (CAPE) ratio for the S&P 500 is 29.87, which is just about to pass the 1929 peak CAPE ratio. However, the situation isn’t much better around the world. The German stock index has a CAPE ratio of 19.6, the Dutch index 21.6, Australia 17.5, India 20.3, and Japan 24.9. These CAPE ratios of around 20 mean that you can expect investment returns of around 5% or lower in the long term.I find any kind of stock market return below 10% a crazy investment because the risk of owning stocks is simply too high for anything less than 10%.

You might see some countries as less risky and others as riskier. However, in the long term, it all revolves around productivity and value creation. Therefore, temporary trouble—which scares most investors away—in combination with a positive long-term outlook is usually perfect bargain hunting territory.Short term volatility might be high due to political news or currency depreciation, but if you own stocks, the underlying assets will always give you a margin of safety, no matter where they are in the world. This, of course, is only if the assets are tangible and not financial.

Russia is the cheapest market with a CAPE ratio of just 5.3. This is due to economic sanctions, and low oil and commodity prices. However, some stocks are extremely cheap.

Other cheap countries are Brazil with a CAPE ratio of 10.7, Turkey with 10.1, and China with 14.1. Those countries offer plenty of bargains, the kind of bargains that many are going to bang their head against the wall in 5 years and wonder why they bought stocks like Foot Locker / NUGT / KORS etc...

Finding a bargain is one of the most beautiful things in investing. However, you have to turn many stones to find them. In 95% of cases, a stock is cheap for a good reason, so be very careful when investing in cheap stocks.However, sometimes the stock is just cheap and you can’t find anything wrong with it. This is simply because the market doesn’t recognize the value in such a stock. The problem is that it might take a very long time before the market recognizes the value. Invest safely, diversify, reduce your risk, look long term.

Since my last post, my Russia investment is up 9% and Brazil is up 12%. Pretty awesome for a month's investment. The biggest problem with most people is they only invest in the country they live in. From where I live, I struggle hard to find growth. ​

Since my last post, I been on the papers again. Probably the last time I will do an interview on ST. I don't like the attention, doing it only because it helps inspires people to do better for themselves.

As the stock market climbs higher, I moved my portfolio to only 30 - 40% stocks. I haven't see a healthy correction in a while. Russia and Brazil looking great for now in terms of evaluation and these makes up to 30 - 40% of my stocks.

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Stock market aside, what have I been up too? At my age, finding a good friend is like finding a unicorn. I think I found one =)

I updated the seeking change section. There are four videos I highly suggest everybody to watch it.

I started a youtube channel, 1st video is a failure, but I'll keep trying. Why? Simply knowing failure is part or life. I'll just keeping trying and I'll see how it pans out.

Month of May been pretty intense. Courses after courses, plenty of wonderful people I met and just really grateful for the people around me.

Options Mastery Program, time and time again, we max out our capacity ( 40 pax max ). We do this to ensure trainer to student ratios are keep high so we can ensure the most value and success rate given to any students. The latest batch =) ​

Just over this weekend, engaged international students from taiwan, thailand, india, malaysia and some singaporeans =)

Was also pretty to met a very good friend of mine at the same hairdressing salon, she mentioned to me her previous hairdresser screwed her hair up, so came back to my friend. Very happy for her and her new born too =)

[ mos ]

The Mosaic Company is a producer and marketer of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients. The Company’s segments include Phosphates, Potash and International Distribution. Its Phosphates Segment sells phosphate-based crop nutrients and animal feed ingredients throughout North America and internationally. The Company’s Phosphates business segment owns and operates mines and production facilities in Florida, which produce concentrated phosphate crop nutrients and phosphate-based animal feed ingredients, and processing plants in Louisiana, which produce concentrated phosphate crop nutrients. Its Potash segment mines and processes potash in Canada and the United States. Its Potash Segment sells potash throughout North America and internationally. Its International Distribution Segment consists of sales offices, crop nutrient blending and bagging facilities, port terminals and warehouses in Brazil, Paraguay, India and China. The company’s current market cap is about $9.3 billion.

I'll start of by saying "If you want average, do what the average person does." I want to help people / animals. These need effort, blood and tears. So if you want a different life, do the things average people don't normally do.

My schedule today:Haircut @ Reds. Alan been my hair dresser for over 10 years. Interview with Portfolio Magazine with lovely Stella assisting me.Dinner hanging out with my students and now friends =)

One lovely day ya. Tomorrow while everybody is enjoying their public holiday, I will be training. I hope my post inspires you to do what you normally you won't do. For the month of May, go do something you normally won't do. Simple stuff like telling your family "I love you" or pick-up and ebook / book to read and FINISH IT or walk towards a person selling tissue and give $50. Just one thing. Make it a habit, you will love this habit =)

[ Dumb investors ]I would define a dumb investor as one who doesn’t think about risk in relation to reward, and therefore I fearlessly say: the majority of investors are behaving in a pretty dumb way.S&P 500 is up three-fold since 2009 and earnings are at the same level they were before the financial crisis. Now if something doesn’t earn more money, it means it isn’t growing which means it should be valued at the same price through time. If the price of an asset just keeps increasing while earnings don’t grow at all, then the asset is riskier.What to do is easy. Get out of the S&P 500 and similar investment vehicles that are completely detached from common sense because the risk is too high for the low expected return.For me, a yearly return of 4% or 5% according to the current S&P 500 P/E ratio is a very small return when compared to the risk of a 40% decline if the economy does well, or a 60% decline if the economy enters a recession.However, you don’t have to be totally out of the market. There are different asset classes like bonds, or stocks which are fundamentally cheap. Personally I'm looking into 50% LTB, 30- 40% stock, 5% Gold ( I hate gold but I follow successful people ) so I put a little in and remainder in cash. That's just for me ah. I been reducing my stock positions that's why you don't see me post much on new entry into stock these days. I'm protecting the profits I took for the past few years.

Stop predicting, yes you. Stop. It's an illusion you can time the market.

This is the chart for Standards and Poor Index. Is it possible market won't crash this year? Is it possible trump is really business friendly? Will a war come?

Your guess is as good as every other out there. 50 / 50.

So what do you do? Invest with the right mindset. Know the rules of the game by attending my free classes. Invest in things you believe in the long term will go up like rising cost of health care. Have an indestructible portfolio you would dream about and chill the fuck out. ( Sorry my language just watch the movie "WHY HIM" )

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Always have a learning mindset. Even at my level ( not saying its high ), even at FF stage, just trying to proof a point. I'm still learning and I just signed up for some internet marketing course, my 3rd time. It was never worked well for me because I'm such a cock. I hope 3rd is a charm. haha

Have you ever ever gotten caught up measuring and evaluating multiple sides to an issue or query and observed yourself extra confused than before you began? It may appear in just about any putting and under pretty much any context, and that i believe that none of us are resistant to it, to at least one quantity or another. I guess that in some situations that might be a good thing, because sometimes the best action to take could be no action, but when it comes to investing, I find it to be a real hindrance.

I learned to think of this phenomenon as analysis paralysis, because when it happens to me I get so caught up in weighing pros and cons, or looking for that one little piece of information that will make my decision obvious that I never actually make a decision.I think one of the most dangerous times analysis paralysis can show up is when you’re trying to figure out if the market is at or near a major reversal point. It’s quite a different thing, making a decision about where to put your money when the market is moving along a clearly defined trend, than it is when the market might be getting ready to reverse in one direction or another. At these points, second-guessing ourselves becomes much easier, and it seems to be more natural to think about what you might be missing out on when your decision takes you in a certain direction.

The problem with trying to evaluate something like opportunity cost is that in the stock market, it’s almost impossible to quantify. Opportunity cost is a forward-looking concept, and the only way to measure the stock market in practical terms is on a historical basis (and as we all know, “previous results don’t guarantee future returns”). Conservative investors who believe the market is about to reverse off of historical highs might be tempted to start moving their money out of stocks and into cash because they don’t want to be caught on the wrong side of a new downward trend. The problem is if – if the market reverses and starts to drop quickly, they’ll be better off than everybody else. But if they’re wrong, and the market keeps going up, they’ve sacrificed a completely unknowable amount of continued profits.

The same problem exists on the opposite side of the question. If you want to try to stay in the market for as long as possible to maximize your gains, you are at an increasing risk of being on the wrong side of things when a major market reversal comes. Staying in means you could keep making money, if the market keeps pushing your stocks higher. It also means you could lose all of the gains you might have made so far if the market reverses quickly against you. So where is the highest opportunity cost? In more than two decades of market and investing experience, I have yet to solve this particular problem. I don’t think anybody really ever has. The problem is that if you dwell on the question too much, you’re probably never going to be able to make a practical, useful decision.

How do I deal with analysis paralysis, especially when I think the market is at increased risk of a major market reversal, and given that I know I won’t always make the right decision? When it comes to investing, I think inaction is the worst thing you can do. I don’t mean that you forge ahead and ignore risks when you can see they are there, or that you shouldn’t lessen your exposure to the stock market in these kinds of situations. Sitting in cash, if you feel that is best place for you right now, doesn’t exactly fit my description of inaction, either. To me, inaction is letting yourself get paralyzed by conflicting information to the point that you do nothing.

The longer I invest in and study the markets, the more I realize that there really never is a perfect picture or set up. I can always find information that will contradict a direction I want to go. That’s true no matter whether I’m talking about broad market conditions or an individual stock to use for a put sale. If I let them, those contradictions will paralyze me and keep me from making a functional decision that will help me keep making money. As much as possible, then I try to look for a preponderance of evidence to lead me in one direction or another. If there are clearly more positives in a stock’s fundamental and value profile than there are negatives, for example, it’s pretty easy to justify making a trade, even though the stock might not fit all of the criteria I prefer to use.​Analyzing broad market conditions is usually quite a bit messier than analyzing a single company, and so finding a preponderance of evidence one way or another isn’t usually as straightforward. That’s why i strongly believe in position sizing and reducing of risk using options. It makes sense to implement more conservative rules about the investments you make and how you will manage them when you think overall market risk is increasing. The advantage those conservative measures gives you is the ability to keep letting the market work for you. Working with stocks that are already priced at levels that make them a bargain is another way to keep working with the market without running the risk most investors are when they buy stocks that are overextended and overpriced. It doesn’t mean we don’t take market risk, but I think it does give us a way to deal with it, and avoid having analysis paralysis hamstring our ability to make good decisions along the way.